This installation consists of three repeated elements: screen-printed boxes, campaign buttons, and mylar confetti. The boxes sit on the exhibition space floor, each filled with campaign buttons facing upward. The graphics feature a logo long-used by the artist as both signature and brand identity, along with the text, “for President 2016.” Red, white, and blue mylar confetti and streamers litter the scene.

First installed at Dogmatic Gallery's infamous "dirt room" in Chicago 2002, this piece acknowledges 2016 to be the first U.S. election the artist would meet the minimum age requirement for the office. 2016 has since become charged as an election year significant to both U.S. and world history.

Through its implied narratives of civic impotence, <i>Hopeful</i> explores the limits of our power, enculturated notions of entitlement in young white men, and the belief that anyone can grow up to be president.